“This is the Truth Line,” Sherman Hermanson said, answering a call. “What do you think?”
“She would never do drugs. I’ve known her since she was in the third grade.”
“You know how rich kids are. They’re always spending Daddy and Mommy’s money in the wrong places.”
“I say she’s innocent. That’s the law, right? Innocent until proved guilty.”
“Meredith Hughes is the biggest snob in the world. She’d do anything and think she could get away with it, including stashing a couple of ounces in her suitcase.”
The voices on the speakerphone echoed against the concrete walls underneath the Old Bayside Mall, where the Truth Club was located. After the earthquake, Mollie and her friends had set up their own club in the space where they’d been trapped, the former site of The Insurance Shoppe, where they’d all worked. They’d told everyone the shop had been destroyed just before they’d escaped. Now they could use it without anyone ever finding out.
Roberta had rigged up some phone lines, they’d brought in furniture, and now it was the home of the Truth Line, a phone service definitely not provided by AT&T. The Truth Line was a secret number that was always changing—and available only to students at Bayside High. Several callers could talk at once. The only requirement was that callers spoke the truth, no matter what.
Mollie and Roberta had stopped by the Truth Club on the way back from Meredith’s house. Mollie couldn’t believe what people were saying. Some wanted to give Meredith the benefit of the doubt, and others were willing to convict her solely because they thought she was stuck up.
“At least no one said they’d seen Meredith doing coke,” Roberta said.
“So what did you guys find out?” Jaime Santos asked. He was sitting in an old flowered chair, wearing a T-shirt and jeans.
“Not much. Meredith doesn’t have a clue.” Mollie sat down on the lumpy green couch Sherman had brought in from his parents’ garage. The springs creaked.
“None at all?” Johnny Chelios looked surprised. “I know she’s a little spacey, but how could you not notice someone stuffing cocaine into your suitcase?”
Mollie shrugged. “I don’t know, but she didn’t do it.”
“And she doesn’t know who did,” Roberta added. She grabbed a pitcher of orange juice from the refrigerator. “There wouldn’t be a clean glass around here, would there?”
Johnny looked at her with one raised eyebrow.
“Right.” Roberta picked up a dirty mug from the floor and peered inside. “We’re going to have to set up some cleaning rules around here, or else hire a maid.” She headed out to the stairs that led up to the mall, where the bathroom was located.
“What about you?” Johnny sat down on the arm of the couch beside Mollie.
Mollie looked up at him. “What about me what?”
“Stop talking in riddles,” Jaime said. “I hate it when you guys do that.”
Johnny cleared his throat. “What I meant was, do you have any idea what really happened?”
Mollie gently bit her lip. “No, not really.”
“But you know enough to be worried,” Johnny said. “I can tell, because you’re doing that lip thing again.”
Mollie tried to push him off the arm of the couch.
“Hey, watch it!” Johnny cried, resisting Mollie’s shove. “If you break me, there’s no replacement.”
Mollie smiled. Johnny Chelios was certainly one of a kind. He had dropped out of school to work on cars, because his family needed the money—and because he didn’t exactly get along with authority, or anything else to do with school. He was smart, though, in a way most people weren’t. He could read you, figure out what made you tick. With his long black hair, leather jacket, and jeans, he looked more like a member of an L.A. street gang than a mechanic. Mollie had to admit that she was growing more and more attracted to Johnny, especially after they’d kissed a few weeks ago. She was still dating Jordan Bosworth, but lately she seemed to have a lot more in common with Johnny.
“So what are we going to do?” Jaime asked. He was pacing back and forth in front of the couch.
Johnny frowned. “You’re worried, too.”
“They have evidence. If it’s up to the cops, they’re not going to look any further,” Jaime said. “No offense, Mollie.”
“None taken.” In the past few weeks Mollie had taken advantage of her father’s position on the police force to get information about her ex-employer Nick Keverian—without her father’s knowledge, of course. Eric Fox was a decent man, but he would never approve of Mollie snooping around in confidential police records. He probably wouldn’t approve of her hanging out in a near-demolished mall with Johnny Chelios, either, but Mollie didn’t think she had to tell her parents everything.
“I could ask around,” Johnny said. “I mean, I know some people who would know who’s moving drugs in this town.”
“You do?” Mollie blurted.
“Yeah.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“Nah,” Johnny said. “They just know who’s who in this town.”
Roberta came back into the room. “I couldn’t wash the crud out of that mug, so I bought some cups at Seven-Eleven.” She set down a bag of paper cups. “Watch—this juice is probably going to be rancid now.” She poured herself a cup and sipped it.
“Oh no, she’s dying!” Sherman yelled. He ran over and pretended to catch Roberta in his arms.
“Get off me, scurve-monkey,” Roberta said, glaring at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be monitoring the phone lines?”
“The Truth Line is officially on break,” Sherman said. “To tell you the truth …” He paused, waiting for someone to laugh at his joke. No one did. “I got tired of listening to people dissect Meredith. I can’t believe anyone would actually think she’d carry that much coke in her suitcase.”
“Where else would she carry it?” Jaime asked. “Her shoe? And it’s ‘dis’ not ‘dissect,’ bonehead.”
“Come on, we know she didn’t do it.” Mollie was getting frustrated with the innuendo. If they all agreed Meredith was set up, it was time to stop talking about it, and start proving it. “We need to make a plan, start asking around, find out who framed her, and why.”
“How about if Sherman and I hang around at Artie’s this afternoon and tonight, see what we hear,” Jaime said. “Everyone’s going to be talking about Meredith. Maybe we’ll find out if she does have any enemies.”
Roberta nodded. “Good idea.”
“I know, how about if you make a microphone that looks like a piece of pepperoni,” Sherman said. “That way we can pick up conversations from everyone’s tables. We’ll call it the Surveillance Supreme.”
“You really are a geek,” Roberta said. She turned to the others. “What else are we going to do?”
“I think we should check out the modeling agency that sent Meredith to New York,” Mollie said.
“You want me to come with you?” Roberta asked.
Mollie nodded.
“What’s the name of the agency?” Johnny asked.
“Whistler,” Mollie said. “It’s in downtown San Francisco.”
“I think I’ll go with you, too,” Johnny said. “Who knows what these people could be into?”
“You just want to see all the babes,” Roberta said.
Johnny smiled. “Someone’s got to do it.”
“Do you guys want to meet back here later?” Jaime wanted to know.
“I’m not sure how long it’ll take,” Mollie said. “But we should all check in with each other when we can.”
“I guess we’ll have to close the Truth Line for now,” Sherman said. “Too bad. I was waiting for someone to call in and say how much they liked this guy at school who got stuck in the earthquake—you know, the one who’s smart, funny, cute—”
“You mean me, right?” Jaime said, smiling.
“Dream on, buddy,” Johnny said. “But I’ve heard I’m more handsome than cute.”
“You know, you guys are murdering my ego,” Sherman said. He walked over to the phone to leave a message saying that the Truth Line would be closed for the night. The recording listed numbers of other local hot lines kids could call if they needed help.
Roberta put away the bottle of juice and tossed her cup into a box they used as a trash can. “I’ll have to go home first,” she said. “Why don’t you pick me up in a half hour.” She left, followed closely by Sherman and Jaime. Mollie could hear Roberta busting on Sherman all the way out of the tunnel.
“I have to go home, too,” Mollie said to Johnny. “Fathead needs to rest.” Fathead was the name she and her older sister, Ellen, had given to her Jeep because it only started when it felt like it. It hadn’t been long since Ellen had died in a car accident. Mollie still thought about Ellen every time she drove in the Jeep.
“I’ll leave with you,” Johnny said. He walked up beside her, and they navigated the stairs to the video arcade they used for their entrance and exit to the Truth Club. He grabbed her arm just as she reached out to open the door into Aladdin Land. “You think I do drugs, don’t you?”
“Nope,” Mollie said.
“Are you sure? You were acting pretty bugged out when I said I might know some people who are into that stuff.”
“I was just surprised, that was all.”
“Why? I mean, you know I don’t exactly hang out with the football and cheerleading crowd.” Johnny let go of her arm. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”
Mollie’s current boyfriend, J.B., was the star quarterback at Bayside. “Yeah, I do. I guess—I don’t know. I come from a small town in Iowa, remember? I knew a lot of kids who were into drinking, but … this is serious.”
“So’s drinking,” Johnny said. “Anyway, I don’t want you thinking you’re hanging out with a cokehead or something, because you’re not.”
Mollie nodded. “Yeah, okay. I knew that, but it’s still good to hear you say it.”
Johnny opened the door, and they walked through the video arcade. “I guess I should be glad you were so worried. That means something, right?”
“What are you talking about?” Mollie asked.
“Well, if you could care less about me, you wouldn’t have gotten all concerned.”
“So what are you saying? That I don’t care less about you?”
“Fox, are you talking in riddles again?” Johnny grinned. “You’re getting pretty good at it, you know.”
“Just as long as I don’t start talking in puns, I’ll be okay,” Mollie said. “We’ll have to stop hanging out with Sherman if that happens.”
“I could live with that,” Johnny said. They stopped beside Mollie’s car. “I’ll come by your house in fifteen.”
“Okay.” Mollie started the Jeep. She got the strange feeling that Johnny wanted to kiss her. He was standing next to the car, leaning on her door, practically staring at her. She didn’t know what to do; being with Johnny confused her. Thinking about their last kiss—and she thought about it a lot—made her feel sort of lost; out of control, but wonderful. She had no idea what she was doing with Johnny, but now didn’t seem like the time to start anything. So many strange things had happened lately: the earthquake, her friend Janet Tze had died, and now Meredith had been arrested. Besides, they had a lot to do that afternoon, and she needed to hold on to at least part of her brain.
“See you later,” she said. Then she pulled out of the parking space.
She felt as if she were shortchanging Johnny somehow, but she was too confused even to talk about her feelings toward him, much less act on them.
She turned up the radio just in time for a newscast and was about to change the station when a news story started.
“This afternoon at a major press conference, attorney and real-estate developer Dayton Hughes stated that he has no plans to run for governor, although his supporters claim he is close to making a decision. A favorite among state Republicans, Hughes is expected to announce his candidacy sometime this month. Critics suspect he is simply waiting for the smoke to clear regarding his son Morton Hughes’s suspect dealings at the Bayside Savings and Loan. However, party officials don’t think that the outcome of that trial will affect Dayton Hughes’s chances of being elected. Dayton Hughes is seen as having California’s interests at heart, given his experience and success in creating environmentally correct housing in both Northern and Southern California. When we return, a report on last night’s fire in—”
Mollie made a left turn onto Baker Street and switched off the radio. Morton Hughes … he was the man she and Johnny had seen give Nick Keverian two airplane tickets so Nick could escape the country without being prosecuted for insurance fraud, among other things.
But Nick hadn’t escaped. Mollie and her friends had made sure of that. Instead Nick was in a federal witness-protection program. He had agreed to testify against his former partners so that he would get off scot-free. Would he be testifying against Morton?
“If he does, you can kiss the governor’s mansion good-bye, Dayton Hughes,” Mollie said out loud. “Just what you deserve.” Then again, would the Hughes family get to Nick first and tell him—threaten him—to keep quiet? Maybe they already had. Mollie didn’t care what they did to Nick, but she didn’t want a governor who went around silencing people, either.
She turned into her driveway and pressed her automatic garage-door opener. As interested as she was in figuring out the Hughes mystery, she had one that was a lot more important to solve first.